I Want to Need You

I bonded with Mark and Jan when I called them ten days after arriving in Tanzania because I had a panic attack. I became friends with Prakash and Harsha when they invited Gil and me to sleep at their house that night.

Carol showed me how to grocery shop in a new country. I got to know Alyssa during her long hours combing lice out of my hair. Everest became an extension of our family during the years he fixed our plumbing, electricity, and immigration problems. We called Dan and Janet when Gil broke out in a sudden, high fever. Janelle and I became friends while being stranded by the old school car multiple times. Lucy and I shared our life stories while she patiently stretched my Swahili skills. 

When thrust into a country where I had no extended family, didn’t speak the language, and had to learn new ways of surviving, I had to throw myself at the mercy of others. Yes, it was humiliating to be so dependent, but I didn’t have a choice. And when I got my feet under me and other new people arrived, they turned to me for a lifeline – and it was fulfilling and gratifying to help. Bonds formed quickly, deeply, permanently. 

These weren’t just friendships based on casual, common interests. They were relationships built on necessity and desperation, forming an intricate web of the sorrows and joys of daily life. 

When we relocated to a brand new city in California three years ago, I found myself frustrated that it took so long to make friends and feel like I was part of a community. In Tanzania, it had happened almost instantaneously. What was different? It slowly dawned on me: In America, I didn’t need to depend on anyone. 

I spoke the language, so that was a great head start. Technology allowed me to get by without as much as asking a neighbor a question. Did I want to know where Costco was? GoogleMaps. The best restaurants in town? Yelp. Where to find a good car mechanic? Google reviews. If I needed a cup of sugar? InstaCart could have it at my door in an hour. Independence circulated in the air around me; each family holed up in their little self-supporting kingdom, and the worst shame of all was needing to ask for help.

It felt good to feel self-sufficient. I liked this non-helpless feeling. That is until I realized it left me with a yawning empty hole. 

I was not content. So I pursued community like my dog on his leash on the way to the park. We started a church Home Group. We joined committees. We invited dozens of people over for dinner. Friendships are materializing, but without a level of true interdependence, they are not the same as I once experienced. I have tasted and seen what real community life looks like, and my heart will be forever restless without it. 

I know some Americans have found a neighborhood or church or job where everyone just gels and it’s magical. But only 16% of Americans say they feel very attached to their local community. So if that’s you, count yourself lucky. You’re the exception. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General produced an 82-page report on America’s Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. Loneliness can increase a person’s risk of premature death by almost 30% – it’s just as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and the trends keep rising, even post-pandemic. An extensive Harvard study found that “close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.” Yet the rate of loneliness in young adults has increased every year since 1976.

I think about how much initiative I’ve needed to build even a little bit of community life in America, and I wonder about those out there who don’t have the resources or access to try. Or perhaps even more likely – those who know they are unhappy but can’t pinpoint what they are missing. 

I think about how much money we put into retreats and camps and even short-term mission trips and wistfully call them mountain-top experiences. Friendships go deep quickly in these kinds of shared-life encounters, and we chalk that up to the starlit nights and campfires and inside jokes. But what if these times are so remarkable precisely because they give us a fleeting glance at the kind of interdependent life we were created to live all the time? 

The Surgeon General’s report gives some helpful suggestions on improving libraries and public transportation, but is anyone talking about this problem on a worldview level? The United States is the most individualistic country on earth. If our mantras are to Live Your Truth and You Be You and Follow Your Heart, how can we expect to find the humility and unselfishness needed to build an authentic community? If we cut all the toxic people out of our lives, eventually there won’t be anyone left.

Kelly Kapic writes, “We were created with dependency in mind, but we think maturity looks like independence.” I would add that not all cultures and countries value this as much as America does. When we think of what a mature child, teenager, or married couple looks like, the description will always include self-reliance. Think about it. Right? 

Maybe that’s why, as Americans, we have such a deep fear of asking for help. We are ashamed to feel vulnerable emotionally, financially, socially. Giving help (when it doesn’t interfere with our independence) makes us feel powerful. But needing it is humiliating. Jake Meador writes, “It is perhaps not surprising that our communal lives are often so barren, for the posture of pride, the posture that says, ‘I am enough,’ is not a posture conducive to neighborly life.”

Honestly, I don’t know what it will take to make Americans more interdependent. I used to think it would take a national emergency, but that happened three years ago and only drove us farther apart. Somehow, I doubt that more library activities will be the answer. 

But I am asking myself what I can do here in my suburban, independent life to try to taste what I experienced overseas. How can I model vulnerability? How can I swallow my pride and ask for and accept help? How can I be a person who brings others together? The government may not have the answers, but maybe the Church does.

I need you and you need me: (from our International Youth Camp, 2006)

Related: The Happiness Kind of Sadness: Portrait of a Friendship